Multiple shockwaves driven by heavy ion beams in solid matter

At the high energy density experimental area (HHT), strongly coupled plasmas are created by the interaction of the SIS heavy ion beams with solid targets. Presently, the generated plasmas have densities close to the solid state, large volumes of several mm and temperatures up to 1 eV. Besides experiments of direct matter heating by heavy ion beams, a complete study of the low entropy shock compression of solid matter driven by the ion beams was performed, with relevance for the equation of state of matter at low temperatures, astrophysics and others [1]. In these experiments layered metal-plexiglass targets were used [2], whereby the fine focused ion beam (FWHM < 0.5 mm) is fully stopped in different metal absorbents and the induced shocks are investigated in a plexiglass layer. The shock dynamics was studied time and space resolved by twodimensional schlieren measurements performed simultaneously with a framing and a streak camera (Fig. 1).